Seven months after an Arizona company took over billing of Grass Valley's water utility, some customers remain suspicious and even angry with what they say are inflated bills.

“There's a whole lot of people who are upset about this,” said Judy Hodge, who has heard from neighbors on Brighton Street where she lives.

Trevor Hill, president and CEO of Global Water Resources in Phoenix, agreed the transition “has been a bit bumpy.”

But he assured customers the technology being used is “state of the art,” and readers can be sent out to check meter performance when accuracy is in doubt.

He also stood behind the accuracy of local bills going forward.

“What we are trying to do is get customers closer to their own data, so they can see their water behavior, and give them the tools to change that,” Hill told The Union.

The source of Hodge's and other customer concerns lie in a combination of factors, including years of inaccurate readings by old water meters, a change in timing of bills, early mistakes by the new vendor, the weather and even the poor economy, City Engineer-Public Works Director Tim Kiser said.

Now that almost all water meters in the city have been replaced to enable the new system, “complaints definitely have increased,” Kiser said.

Customer concern is prompting Kiser to develop a water conservation program providing tips and resources for residents. He's also looking at pushing off plans to implement a previously approved rate hike set for Jan. 1, Kiser said.

He plans to take his recommendations to the City Council in early November, he added.

Sticker shock

Like many city residents, Hodge didn't pay much mind when her new water meter was installed July 14.

Then, her first bill under the new system arrived. It showed average daily usage during the two months from May 1 to July 31 had jumped from 500 gallons per day to an average of 1,206 gallons per day. Her total water bill was $286 for 60 days of use, she said.

“When I opened the bill, I almost fell over,” Hodge wrote.

“We don't have a huge yard or a huge house, and we do not have a pool or spa. We also have not washed our vehicles here at all this year,” Hodge wrote. “There are two people in this household, and our water habits haven't changed in the last few years.”

Chris Hohns of Henderson Street also saw a big jump: Household water use for the two months from early July to early September was more than 24,000 gallons, up from about 12,100 in each of three previous billing cycles, according to Global Water records.

“I have no lawn, literally, and only a tiny garden in the back that did not need very much watering this year with the moderate temperatures,” Hohns wrote.

“We have one of those little inflatable ring pools, 8 or 10 feet across,” Hohns wrote. According to the manufacturer, it holds 900 gallons.

“To fill it, it takes me both hoses for a few hours (and one of my hoses is, honestly, like a fire hose),” Hohns wrote. “They're telling me I used about half (that) much water every day? Even while we were gone camping during August? Ridiculous.”

Two of Hohns' neighbors also saw their water usage double at summer's end.

“All of these individuals, by the way, assured me that, like me, they had not increased their water usage during that period,” Hohns said.

“People just weren't ready for this,” Hodge added.

Weather, economy

A wet spring and mild summer likely played a role for many customers who saw big bills at the end of summer — especially if they have lawns, Kiser said.

“People don't realize how quickly lawn irrigation adds up,” Kiser said.

Usage for residents across the city surged in the last two months of summer, according to a Global Water usage chart.

And, old meters likely were inaccurate to begin with, Kiser and Hill added. As the meters across the city aged, they slowly lost the ability to register small uses.

“What they were missing that (the new meters) now are detecting is every time you flush the toilet, every time you wash your hands,” Kiser said.

“Rubbish,” replied Hohns, who nevertheless agreed his old meter may have been slightly inaccurate. “Certainly, it was not telling me that I was using 1 gallon of water when, in fact, I was actually using 2 1/2 gallons.”

Many people also are paying closer attention to their water bills because of their general economic condition, Kiser added.

“We're even seeing people paying in cash so they won't incur fees with their credit cards,” Kiser said; people using credit cards under the new system pay a $1 fee. “People are watching every penny these days.”

A mistake in Global's computer billing system involved its payments to the city, but that should have been invisible to customers, Kiser said.

In every first-time bill from Global Water, users can expect to see an increase, but that is due to a one-time occurrence: The first bill will reflect additional days in the billing cycle, as meter-reading schedules and billing cycles shift, Kiser said.

Pioneering system

In February, Grass Valley officials hired Global Water Resources to handle billing at a cost of $490,000 yearly. With the city cutting staff and combining employees' workloads, the move allowed the city to shift meter readers to other work. It also streamlines the issuing of work orders for repairs.

For customers, it allows online tracking of water usage and online payments. For the first time, they can pay over the telephone, by credit card and by direct withdrawal from a bank account

And with state water regulations turning ever tighter, Global Water's computer tracking system helps employees stay on top of leaks with timely repairs. Water districts now have to report such steps to the state, Kiser has said.

People are starting to discover leaks in their plumbing they never before knew they had, Kiser added. With the new system, city workers can help residents pinpoint a slowly running toilet or a leaky faucet, he said.

“You think it's not that big a deal, but you do the math of 3 or 4 gallons an hour, and multiply that by 60 days, and you're coming up with a significant amount of water,” Kiser said.

Rate payers are likely to see the benefit of any long-term savings through the new system, he said.

“We hope that, through this process, we won't have to have as many (rate) increases” in the future, Kiser said.

Global Water's Hill commended the city for being only the second in California to adopt the system, providing customers with real-time information about their water use — a step that leads toward conservation.

Global Water is “the only company in the world that has figured out how to do this,” Hill said. “I formed Global to build a conservation-oriented water utility. Every dollar we've invested has been to change the sector and give customers the opportunity to monitor... their water behavior.”

It seems to be working.

Since getting that first bill from Global Water, Hodge has been reading her meter daily and closely monitoring how she uses water. For a while, the usage shown on the meter was vastly less than what was reflected in the online account, she said.

That discrepancy has been resolved, but others continue to appear, and he still had to pay that big initial bill, Hodge added.

Her distrust of Global Water continues. One thing the company can't overcome, she said, is simply being located in another state.

“The city should have kept it local,” Hodge said.

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To contact Senior Staff Writer Trina Kleist, e-mail tkleist@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4230.